Smart move by the Trump administration, Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley. After showing the United Nations Security Council members the proposed resolution against North Korea last Tuesday, they are calling for a vote this Monday.

China and Russia are already on record saying additional economic sanctions would be needed; but also pushing the request for diplomatic talks more prominently.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States called for a vote Monday on a U.N. resolution that would impose the toughest-ever sanctions on North Korea, a move that could lead to a showdown with the country’s biggest trading partner China and its neighbor Russia.

The Trump administration adopted a totally new approach with this resolution, circulating an American draft Tuesday and setting a vote six days later. With previous sanctions resolutions, the U.S. spent weeks and sometimes months negotiating the text with China and then presenting a resolution to the rest of the Security Council for a vote.

Several diplomats said the U.S. demand for a speedy council vote was aimed at putting maximum pressure on China and reflected Washington’s escalating concern over North Korea’s latest nuclear test, which its leaders touted as a hydrogen bomb, and its recent ballistic missile launch over Japan.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, who backs “robust” new sanctions, said Thursday that the U.S. proposals to ban all oil imports and textile exports and prohibit North Koreans from working overseas — which helps fund and fuel the country’s nuclear and missile programs — are “a proportionate response” to its “illegal and reckless behavior.”

Rycroft stressed that “maximum possible pressure” must be exerted on North Korea to change course and give diplomacy a chance to end the crisis.

The proposed U.S. sanctions would also freeze all foreign financial assets of the government and its leader, Kim Jong Un. The U.S. draft also identified nine ships that have carried out activities prohibited by previous U.N. resolutions and would authorize any U.N. member state to stop these vessels on the high seas without their consent and use “all necessary measures” — which in U.N. language includes force — to carry out an inspection and direct the vessel to a port.

Professor Joseph DeThomas of Pennsylvania State University, a former U.S. ambassador and State Department official who dealt with North Korea, said the U.S. demand for quick council action is “an indicator of how the administration thinks time has run out.”

“My sense is they believe that they don’t have time for a delicate diplomatic dance,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday. “The other possibility … is they want to see the color of China’s money. They’re putting down the marker here and saying ‘OK, Are you prepared to do what is necessary to put pressure on North Korea at a moment when we’re simply out of time?’” (continue reading)

No, six party talks are not the solution. But the call for six party talks is the beginning of the solution. Once six-party talks are called for, Trump will refuse. Thereby placing the onus on China to figure out what to do with the Norks.
So, you are correct. X gets the square.

Trump will “reluctantly” accept the 6 party talks. Don’t forget that negotiations are his forte.

In the past, the U.S. was pushing for the negotiations, and the question was how much protection money North Korea would get in return for stopping its military threats. This time, North Korea is calling for the negotiations, and the question will be how much North Korea will give up in return for getting the sanctions lifted.

Trump has brilliantly positioned the negotiations for a big win for the United States. China and North Korea will think that they won because they got the sanctions lifted. The sanctions would not have been in place at all, if not for Trump.

No, call for talks is just the same ‘ol same ‘ol. Stall for time. Time to throw other hijinks into the works to gain other advantages. That is all they have done since the Armistice. Stall tactics and everyone always fell for it. “We are so civilized! We care about the Korean people” meaning “We are so scared and would rather pay ransom for peace than deal with a real problem. After all, this isn’t our money.”

Politicians, especially the crapheads in the UN are the sleaze that would rather buy their way out of a problem than deal with it like the real problem it is … a festering sore that only gets worse with time.

UN Security Council has five permanent members: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly (with end of term date):
Bolivia (2018) Egypt (2017) Ethiopia (2018) Italy (2017) Japan (2017) Kazakhstan (2018) Senegal (2017) Sweden (2018) Ukraine (2017)Uruguay (2017). Other member states may participate in deliberations but have no vote.

The six-party talks if they occur would be China, NK, Russia, US, SK and Japan.

Yes, but Xi and Putin want to set the table as to conditions. Xi’s call to Macron as I posted on the Presidential thread, is (I assume) an attempt to convince him to support the ‘double freeze’. Xi has deep pockets as in,

These reports are interesting:
In two articles published online this week, Russian analyst Aleksandr Nemets details the evidence many have assembled showing that Moscow is heavily involved in both the rocket program of North Korea and Pyongyang’s “aggressive plans” to use it against other countries.http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=59AD9D48C5F93

Beyond the ‘opinions’ there is too much precise detail to be dismissed out of hand from many sources. You should know that if you actually read it. Odd your definition of what constitutes ‘propaganda’. You might like to rethink that after you have examined the evidence. I seriously doubt Aleksandr Nemets would be able to publish this information on your preferred state-run sources. Very amusing BS Durham.

Sorry Bob Thomas but this time you will be proven wrong! There is absolutely no comparison with previous Presidents. The fact we are asking for this vote on Monday which puts North Korea 🇰🇵 back into the 19th century tells me our Lion 🦁 will expect the complete denuclearization of NK with consistent nuclear inspections. China 🇨🇳 will ask for the removal of our troops. Our President will agree to that and you might also see the conclusion of the Korean War once and for all. China 🇨🇳 realizes our Lion 🦁 will destroy their economy.

Don’t forget that India 🇮🇳 has announced they are walking away from BRICS in preparation of the Economic War with China 🇨🇳. We are living in an incredible time in history!

I think, at this point, it’s just a formality along with demands/ sanctions, but it’s very necessary for the theater that is the global stage. Trump is a MASTER at optics and results. We’ve been trained over the past 40+ years ( my entire life thus far ) to assume that our ‘betters’ are on the case, when we all now know that they’ve been working against us. We have a different frame with which to view the brinksmanship with our new President and his more than capable Team. Trust him!

More likely, it will be when those two Chinese mechanized divisions go on a goodwill tour of N Korea to convince Kim that he shouldn’t irradiate any more Chinese territory with his increasing yield nuclear tests…or when Kim’s clear and present danger would force another country’s hand.

The real question that the Chinese are pondering is “If we veto the resolution proposed by the United States, what actions will President Trump retaliate with?”

As Sundance has said in previous posts, the limits of economic pain that President Trump can inflict upon China are numerous. The question is are the Chinese prepared to for the consequences of pissing off President Trump? And on our side, what actions will the Chinese take in response to said actions.

The only wildcard for the US is what will the ” something stupid” be. There are a few scenarios where things could turn into a shooting war, like launching missiles at Guam. Would the Chinese be prepared to sacrifice North Korea to stave off Economic pain inflicted by President Trump.

China is no longer in control of events here. They are reacting, actually flailing. They are getting very close to calling for the famed “six party talks”, which is not Trump’s goal for sure. It is merely another marker of China’s weakness in this Economic War being waged. No blood, no tanks, much more effective.

I have seen several articles since Friday declaring that Lil Kim has been a bad guy with a temper since he was a teenager. They cite his former girlfriend. Looks like they are preparing to lay blame on Kim and call it a nuclear temper tantrum.

I’m not really sure, but I believe before he banged Madonna, he was just a regular looking and acting basketball player. After Madonna, he started dyeing his hair, acting weird, kicking refs in the balls, etc. I’ve always thought he learned to be controversial from Madonna. He found out there was more money in being a freak. It worked for Madonna and it worked for him,

Kim’s penchant for more readily allowing “weird” people to get close to him, while utterly disrespecting real representatives, is a form of communist degradation of its enemies – a form of very intentional disrespect. The Clinton and Obama regimes gladly sucked up to it, KNOWINGLY, as a way of degrading America.

Trump could do the opposite and invite “trigger people” to the White House. Nikki Haley seems to be on Kim’s trigger list. Maybe some North Korean defectors. Foreign officials that get Kim’s goat. Have a big meeting and photo op with all of them.

This song and dance with China and or Russia is getting old. We talk about sanctions and punishing the NORK for their carelessness and provocation, but when the curtain is pulled back, China is driving them, Russia and Pakistan are helping to accelerate their nuclear program through Hardware and intelligence. It is the only way an “isolated” regime can make the progress that has been pitched to us regarding their delivery capabilities as well as their advancement into the hydrogen arena. They made up 10 – 15 years of modernization for their program since the Trump administrations came into power…..while being isolated. China and Russia are in control of the strings that make North Korea dance…

So I think we all can realize we are playing chicken with China.
And I think we all know who pulls NK’s string [they only have one string anyway]
Further, I think this is about our President Trump [still like saying that], getting China to be on our side willingly or at least for show where the end state is NK has no nukes no more and their sabre rattling reaches an historic low. This could bring an ultimate end state of no NK no more through collapse where everybody just assumes SK moves in and reunifies, or NK ceases to exist thanks to Secretary Mattis.

Meanwhile nobody is watching our President Trump [still like saying that] maneuver and get exactly what he wants on international trade terms and positions.

NK doing these every couple weeks. Do they have the ability and material to turn these out like an assembly line? I realize China is their main trading partner and control the puppet strings, but is China providing them most if not all of the material for these tests as well? Is NK China’s testing grounds? I know China is further along in their missiles and weapons than is evident by NK, but they really couldn’t show an obvious helping hand, could they?

I would guess that such actions that go to hurt the downtrodden people, might work well in a more democratic society, where protest of their government is more likely. In NK. the accelerated suffering will just be turned against Kim’s favorite scapegoat…the USA.

Yes. They think they have President Trump and team MAGA painted into a corner over humanitarian crises (real and created by them) BUT it is they who will find out that it is far more effective to cut them off from their cash cow than to bomb them. Cutting off the banking access only hurts the elites bc the people don’t see that money or benefit from it already

Reminds one of Japan in 1940-41 thinking they had been boxed in. They fellt they had to do something drastic. The US at that time was not really prepared or understood what Japan could do. North Korea is much more unstable with a large capacity to dish out a military response. We better be ready for the worst case scenerio and not be caught flat-footed like we were at Pearl.

One U.S. Trident sub can destroy N Korea with a nuclear strike in under 20 minutes per military analysts. China and Russia know Trump is serious here. This will not be a conventional strike because that gives N Korea sufficient time to do tremendous destruction to Seoul. If they want a diplomatic solution, where China looks like a hero for de-fanging NK, they need to play ball and quickly. Six party talks will accomplish nothing but drag on for a year and allow NK to develop more nukes and better missiles. Trump won’t buy that. Unlike Obama he isn’t looking for a fig leaf to disguise a negotiated defeat.

In ‘Spin the Wheel’ of delay and obfuscation, talks is on the wheel 50% of the time. Kim knows only one thing, a bullet. Trump can no longer trust anyone in DPRK with a nuke. China needs to either clean up NK or stand down.

That is the end point. Sanctions is to pressure China not NK. China loses money on sanctions. For Trump, max sanctions is to show he tried.

China will feel massive economic pain – much of it irreversible – as the Trump Administration cuts deals with countries like India and launches the American Re-Industrialization Program to displace imports from China … THIS YEAR.

“The Trump administration adopted a totally new approach with this resolution, circulating an American draft Tuesday and setting a vote six days later. With previous sanctions resolutions, the U.S. spent weeks and sometimes months negotiating the text with China and then presenting a resolution to the rest of the Security Council for a vote.”

Just goes to show expediency to solve problems is a result of people actually doing their jobs for a change. Not the incompetence and ineptness of the previous administrations that we were so accustomed to seeing!

You are either a Superpower or your not. Under Obama the US took the role of a fading star, a remorseful world leader, a true paper tiger. The world understands one thing above all else and that’s POWER. There are no other countries who can dispatch 3 aircraft carrier tasks forces to patrol off shore of Korea. Economically the US hold all of the cards. XI has decided to play nice with Uncle Sam because he knows that we provide his bread and butter. The show down with little Kimmy is fast approaching and likely will occur prior to Trumps trip to China. Xi will pull the plug on the little dictator and he will shortly disappear.

China’s chess clock is continuing to accumulate a lot of time, versus PDJT who appears to be utilizing a blitz approach. The real finesse moves are coming. Reaching out to France is another attempt by China to gain leverage, to appear diplomatic and to draw down PDJT’s energy and patience. It’s not going to work. Continue the full court press PDJT!

China will realize that the jig is up with the U.S.A. (President Trump). No more charade with this ploy of leverage with NoKo. Then one fine morning very soon, we will wake up to the news of Kim Jong-un’s removal from power by a military coup or his assassination.

I hope Trump never enters into talks because China and Russia will pretend to mediate but China’s goal is for the USA to be completely out of the South China Sea, out of Asia, of of the hemisphere. They are using Nork misbehavior to draw us into negotiating ourselves into a weaker position with China.

One should never enter negotiations without both firm limits AND a hard action timetable that is completely independent of the talks. Talks in a separate thread.

Weak compromised dupes and fellow travelers like Clinton and Obama always look to talks as their salvation, rather than what they should be – low-probability due diligence that may avert the need for a real solution. If you are depending on your talks to deal with the situation, you’re already behind the 8-ball.

I want to see President Trump resolve to shoot down any future ICBM’s North Korea launches. It seems to me any missile fired toward the U.S. should be considered a threat and dealt with accordingly. It would be different if Kim Jong un hadn’t made so many threats of destruction against us.

Agreed, but best not to announce. Best to play that card for a sudden flurry of winning, IMO.

Create perfect conceptual tripwires, unknown to the enemy or their poodle MSM, and with great deliberation and choice, use them to trip Kimbo and keep him tripping. And maybe make the panda fall on its azz a few times, too. 😉

I think the Chinese and Russians would also like to see the US anti-ICBM defense systems in a live action senario so they could better evaluate the effectiveness of our systems and any ECM we might deploy. I think the DoD probably doesn’t want to show any of those systems, except when absolutely necessary.

I heard once that the military would have never made our stealth technology public if we didn’t have something else in our back pocket. If that is true, I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of Top Secret weapon we have in our arsenal.

“shoot down any future ICBM’s North Korea launches.”
What makes you think that l’il Kim has any ICBMs to launch? China is not that stupid.
Can you clearly state the difference between something following a ballistics trajectory that may be intercepted (your shot down), and a sub orbital MRV called an ICBM, that cannot be intercepted. You seem to be but a troll!

“Talks” are not success. They are not even a “goal”. They are merely a re-framing of the problem which can be sold to a duped public as success.

I repeat. “Talks” are NOTHING. That is why the usual suspects all want them.

Now – let’s talk about those “Americans” who sold us the greatness of “talks”.

If Obama, Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Susan Rice or Wendy Sherman called it success, IT WAS NOT.

If any of them called something “a goal”, IT WAS NOT. It was deceptive means.

Their true goal was to strengthen the hand of international socialism.

All of them looked for “goals” that helped North Korea, but got the Clinton and Obama administrations off the hook for all of their actual FAILURE to deal with North Korea’s behavior up to that point. These were DECEPTIVE negotiations, where one side had the other side’s interest ahead of the true interests of their fellow countrymen.

AGREEMENTS to denuclearize are not even success, when dealing with cheaters like China and North Korea. ACTUAL DENUCLEARIZATION is *A* goal, but not even a necessary one.

NUCLEAR BALANCE is the TRUE goal.

Whether the number of nukes is ZERO or ONE THOUSAND, balance is a true goal for America to pursue.

That is easily accomplished, with no help from scheming China or lying North Korea, by simply putting nukes in South Korea and Japan. THAT needs to be our bottom line.

I repeat. NUCLEAR BALANCE is the goal. We need to get the goal out of China’s blood-covered, cheating panda paws. They do not control the goal. WE control the goal.

Well said! Talks just end up with hollow promises of verification that never happens and it is just rinse and repeat. It is like the fox verifying all the chickens are there.
Talks are a white flag but the question is who is waving it? So far, it has always been us.

China has a history of claiming, invading and occupying adjacent and nearby lands claiming they are Chinese. We saw this with Tibet and neighboring areas. Okinawa is an island China has eyes to claim as well. We’ve also observed other islands which are Japanese territories being occupied by China along with its building of military structures in the ocean in order to expand what it claims to be Chinese national waters.

How long before we see this being addressed? It had been a part of the president’s speeches on the campaign trail. I get that other angles of negotiation must be the focus, I just don’t want this matter to be forgotten.

I have noticed something very awesome with Trump. “Quiet before the storm of winning.” If the administration stops talking about something, it’s because the DOING is unfolding. And usually unfolding BIG LEAGUE.

Betsy DeVos is a great example. It seemed like she was backing off – not pushing – doing nothing. And then BAM – a monster blow (Title IX rollback) landed on campuses, already battered for their assault on free speech, and in retreat on THAT one.

Trump has a huge advantage over everybody else. He is not only aware of how it all connects – he has a feel for the dynamics of it, and has gamed out optimal futures looking at those dynamics.

I think it’s very strategic that the Trump administration wants to hold the UNSC Resolution vote on Monday, September 11 in NYC when our country observes another 9/11 anniversary. It reinforces to the world our determination to never allow our nation to be attacked by rogue entities again.